Most of the activities take place on site however coastal walks, surfing, waterskiing, ringo rides, crab and boating, and lake sessions are run offsite but nearby at Westward Ho! Beach, The River Torridge and Stevenstone Lakes.
All sessions are led by qualified instructors who have all been trained in the areas appropriate to the activity. Each session begins with a safety brief and introduction to the activity the children are taking part in.
The centre runs residential day, weekend and week courses for schools. Arrangements and activities are created to the schools own requirements. The children stay in rooms in the centre itself and are served three meals a day.
Development of the Climbing wall
A climbing wall can be described as either a natural rock face that is used to climb or an artificially constructed wall that has grips on it for hands and feet to climb. These are called hand holds, and foot holds and there are many different types.
The idea of indoor rock climbing walls was first thought of in the UK and the first one was built in 1964 at Leeds University by a lecturer called Don Robinson. The wall consisted of pieces of rock inserted into a corridor wall. In the 1970’s many walls were built at schools and colleges to provide for beginners. These walls encouraged local young climbers to get involved and soon parents helped to set up a series of lead and bouldering competitions. Soon after this time many commercial rock climbing walls were built in Sheffield, England. This is a traditional rock climbing centre because it’s situated near the Peak District.
Today traverse walls are built in primary school playgrounds, universities and local parks. Many climbers also build their own walls in industrial units or garages as modern materials are freely available.
Most walls used to be made out of brick, then wood such as plywood was used with wooden footholds, and handholds being used however today the materials being used to construct walls are much more advanced. Climbing walls can consist of materials such as steel, aluminum, timber, slabs of granite, concrete sprayed on to wire mesh and fiberglass.
Today most rock climbing walls are made of a thick multiplex board that has holes drilled into it. Bolt on holds or screw on holds are being used for grips. Screw on holds can be fixed directly onto the wall anywhere whereas Bolt on holds are larger and the bolts such as T-nuts have to be inserted through specific bolt points, to be fixed into holes in the wall. Walls that are made of manufactured steel or aluminium have to have an engineered industrial fastener to secure climbing holds. The world's first commercially marketed bolt-on climbing holds were made of resinous concrete.
Walls today have many features such as smears, overhangs/underhangs, fingercracks, flakeholds, stalactites, macro’s, oversized grips etc. These are structures on the wall like incuts or bulges of different shapes that either indent or project out the wall. Whether or not a climbing wall has these features depends on the type of climbing wall for example stalactites would usually be used on the roof of a bouldering wall and mimics those that you would find in a cave.
Nowadays climbing walls are much more attractive due to the surface of the wall being improved with paints and wall art. Walls can be made of many different materials to give different textures to the surface of the wall. One of the most recent developments in the materials used for climbing walls is the products used to give the wall a texture resembling that of outdoor rock. Some of these products used are concrete and paint (such as high friction paint) and polyurethane mixed with sand.
Today there are company’s that build climbing walls for you such as CWMA, The Climbing Walls Manufacturers Association and most of the design of the climbing wall is done by using 3D computer aided design programs and help from professionals such as architects, experienced climbers, engineers, carpenters etc.
Climbing wall facilities today meet the needs of climbers, provide interesting climbing across an appropriate range of abilities and styles, are professionally designed and built with experienced climber input and offer good value for money. Climbers are able to add there own input into the design, management and usage of the walls to fulfil their perceived needs.
Surfboard
Surfboards were originally invented in Hawaii, where they were known as “Papa he‘e nalu”. They were made out of wood from local trees, such as koa. There were two main types of boards called Olo-for royalty and Alaia for common surfers.
In 1926- Tom Blake designed the 1st hollow surfboard. The board was made of redwood, and had lots of holes drilled into it. It was covered above and below with a thin board of wood. This board was much longer, lighter, and faster and was known as cigar box.
In the1930’s- Balsa wood was now being used as it was lighter and stronger than solid wood.
In 1932- Boards were being made out of Balsa and redwood. These woods have different advantages as the balsa wood is lighter in weight but the redwood is tough and durable therefore the centre of the boards were made out of balsa and the rails were made of redwood to strengthen the boards.
In 1935- A fixed fin was invented to act as a rudder helping to manoeuvre & stabilize the board.
In 1934- The design of the hot curl board was introduced allowing the surfer to manoeuvre into the pipe of the wave. This design involved shortening parts of the tail and rail of the board.
In 1946-The first fibreglass board was made. It’s a hollow plastic mould, with a redwood stringer (a piece of wood running down the centre of the surfboard) and sealed with fibreglass tape.
In 1949- The 'Sandwich' board was introduced. It had a Styrofoam centre enclosed by two thin layers of plywood, with balsa wood rails and the outside was coated in fibreglass.
In the 1950’s- This was the beginning of modern surfing, most surfboards were using balsa wood in the construction of the boards.
In the Early 60’s- Polyurethane foam and fibreglass was introduced. This made surfboards much lighter, easier to turn and less drag on waves.
Between 1960-1970- The Shortboard was invented and the average length of surfboard went from 10 to 6 feet. The Advantage of the shortboard was speed, manoeuvrability, and the shape enabled surfers to ride inside the pipe and carve turns in and out of white water.
Many changes were made to the design of the surfboard over this time such as:
Pintail design-control the tail end adding stability
Australia –made boards thicker but this reduced speed
USA- board thinner, but this made them not buoyant enough
Twin fin introduced
Lift added to the nose of the surfboard for flotation
Flexible fin
Rail curve
In the 1970- 1980’s
Jack O’Neil’s son invented the leash
Tri fins were made so that two extra fins could be attached outside of the permanent fin in the centre
They made surfboards with three fins permanently stuck on the board
Foam boards were invented to make surfing safer and easier to learn on
The appearance of surfboards improved as board artwork was introduced.
In the1990’s
Designs were directed specifically towards styles of riding by changing the Rail curve, tail design and bottom contour of the board to produce different types of boards such as the Fish board, the shooter, the mini Malibu, and the Gun.
Shapers used computer software to create board templates.
Tow introduced- surfer pulled into very large wave by Jet Ski.
Length of gun reduced to maximize manoeuvrability and control
Today leading surfboard companies are using more environmentally friendly products such as aluminium and styrofoam to make more durable and flexible surfboards.
Reference:
Evaluate the developments
I think the developments in climbing walls are mainly positive as the construction of climbing walls has increased to provide for the sport of climbing around the world, the health of the nation has increased due to the amount of people taking up the sport. Climbers are able to develop their skills and techniques in the sport without many of the dangers of climbing outdoors. Bouldering has become very popular as it enables people to try some aspects of the sport of rock climbing.
However these developments have also had a negative effect in climbing as people have developed bad habits such as not paying attention when belaying due to relying on modern belay devices such as redpoint descenders which require no belay partner and lower climbers very slowly upon a fall or gri gri’s which lock off automatically on any sudden weight.
I think the developments in surfboards have been very positive as design and construction of surfboards has increased the amount of people participating in the sport as it has made it easier for beginners to enjoy the sport using foam boards, it has made the sport a lot more exciting as it has meant that people can experiment with many different styles of surfing using different types of boards and it has made it easier for surfers to catch waves due to design in shape and weight of the boards.
However these developments have also had a negative effect in surfing for example the increase in people participating in the sport has meant that there is a high amount of people on the beach which causes weathering such as damage or destruction to reefs.